Category: Pacific

Gun-related crime and fatalities are up in New Zealand, according to a detailed report from Radio New Zealand (RNZ), despite last year’s crackdown on gun ownership following the March 15 attacks on two mosques in Christchurch.

The report noted the violent crime rate went up in both 2018 (before the mosque attacks) and in 2019. RNZ quoted Auckland City councilor Alf Filipaina, who blamed gangs for much of the rise in gun-related crime.

“I don’t know whether it’s about the accessibility to firearms … all I know is that we need to get the details behind the offences,” Filipaina said. “It’s hard to pinpoint, [if] it’s because of the gangs or because of drugs, or domestics, without knowing the details behind.”

What is clear to American gun rights activists is that gun control has failed again as a response to a violent crime. That is, disarming law-abiding citizens hasn’t had an impact on criminals using firearms……..

Another 70 cases of the coronavirus infection have been confirmed aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship, currently quarantined in Japan, according to Japanese health officials.

This brings the total number of cases aboard the vessel as of Sunday to 355, the largest confirmed cluster outside mainland China. People with confirmed infections have been taken to hospitals in Japan.

After the ship’s two weeks of quarantine at sea, officials from various countries, including Canada, Italy, Hong Kong and South Korea, are in the process of extracting their citizens from the vessel. The Diamond Princess is reported to have around 3,700 passengers and crew members.About half the passengers are from Japan, according to Reuters.

Approximately 400 U.S. citizens are aboard the Diamond Princess. According to Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, 44 Americans on the cruise ship have been infected, though not all are sick.

The century-long attempt to kill capitalism in America gained a dramatic head of steam in the 1960s with the rapid ascendency of progressivism, a Marxist movement that would quietly seize control of the Democratic Party over the last half-century.

Which was something different. For most of America’s 244-year history, the dominant political parties that evolved had a common goal constantly working to improve the country they both loved. In the 1860s, a Republican president went to war to end slavery. A century later, a Democratic president launched another well-intentioned war, a war on poverty. Democrats and Republicans alike largely saw their country as a force for good, both at home and abroad. Beginning in the 1960s, that widely- shared view began to show cracks as the progressive movement began tightening its grip on the modern Democratic Party. Democrat icons of the 1960s — Adlai Stevenson, Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Sam Nunn, Hubert Humphrey and JFK, to name a few — were genuine patriots who loved their country, a sentiment that was shared by a large majority of that era’s rank and file Democrats. Such is no longer the case. Here are four ways Democrats are looking to end the idea of America altogether:

Killing America by replacing patriotism with socialism

In October 2018, The New York Timesreported that 69% of progressive Democrats are ashamed of being American. Increasingly influenced by the progressive wing of their party, Democrats as a whole have moved sharply away from that love of country, and veered toward socialism that sounded like communism: In February 2019, Public Opinion Strategies found that an astounding 77% of Democrats who plan to vote in 2020 self-identify as socialists. Aided and abetted by the complicit mainstream media, the modern Democratic Party has been remarkably successful at driving down patriotism: Gallup found that less than a third of Democrats are extremely proud of their country. That’s less than a third, and trending sharply downward.

Killing America by making citizenship meaningless

Why has the modern Democratic Party worked so diligently to erode patriotism? Because love of country is a major impediment to convincing voters to support what they really want, which is yielding their nation’s sovereignty to an international governing body, ultimately the United Nations. With patriotism marginalized, a society’s populace can more easily be led to no longer see themselves as citizens of their country, but as “citizens of the world.” (In his July 2008 speech in Berlin, progressive presidential candidate Barack Obama told an adoring crowd of 200,000 cheering Europeans, “I come to you as a Citizen of the World.”)

In Europe, the long-standing national identity of every progressive-run nation is already being intentionally erased, and it stands as a sort of bellwether of things to come over here.

Government-encouraged mass migration is its instrument, and the same thing is being attempted in America by the modern Democratic Party. This particular phenomenon is particularly associated with billionaire globalist George Soros. The Hungarian-born “stateless statesman” is the most prolific financier of the progressive push for a world without borders.

In his anti-capitalist best-seller, The Crisis of Global Capitalism, Soros sets out the progressive strategy. Complaining bitterly about “the sway of sovereign nations,” Soros has advocated for, and since spent immense sums each year fostering “open society alliances” among sovereign nations. The goal of these alliances is to indoctrinate citizens of western nations to accept the high-mindedness of doing away with national identities in favor of a collectivist world identity. With national identities erased, people no longer see themselves as patriotic citizens of their countries, but as united citizens of an enlightened global society. People who oppose the unfettered influx of migrants and refugees are shouted down as racists and xenophobes. Once open-border alliances have been solidified, the last obstacle is cleared for a borderless world governed by the UN. For global governance to become a reality, the sovereignty of every western nation, including America, must be eliminated, Soros believes.

When the election of Donald Trump dealt a calamitous setback to the near-term realization of fundamentally transforming America, Soros penned an angry rant comparing Trump to Hitler, and calling him a racist and a xenophobe. Known as “the puppet master” because of the enormous influence he exerts on Democratic Party hierarchy, Soros’s foremost target in taking down sovereign western democracies is the crown jewel of them all: the United States of America. In working toward the culmination of that takedown, the billionaire globalist mastermind has powerful allies at the highest levels of the modern Democratic Party.

Killing America through identity politics

To overthrow a capitalist society, The Communist Manifesto calls for fomenting a titanic struggle by pitting an alleged victim class against an alleged oppressor class. In the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks rose to power by pitting the proletariat against the bourgeoisie.

Over the last half-century, the Democratic Party has taken the concept of Marxist/Leninist dialectical struggle to new heights through its use of identity politics. The term refers to politically subdividing the electorate into multiple factions (voting blocks), whose members are told they are singled out for persecution by a bigoted and unjust society. To wit: People of color are persecuted by racists & white supremacists, women by sexists & misogynists, refugees & illegal immigrants by nativists & xenophobes, Muslims by Islamophobes, gays & lesbians by homophobes & religious bigots, the 99% by the 1%, and so on. The goal of identity politics is to turn a majority of the American electorate against their country.

The self-serving narrative of identity politics is that caring, inclusive and tolerant Democrats will righteously defend the members (voters) of each identity group from the constant onslaught of outrages inflicted on them by an oppressive society. Identity politics is used as a political bludgeon to deceive Americans into believing their country is an incurably unjust place where things can be set straight only by killing off its existing economic and governing systems.

That is the observed pattern and it’s important. It tells us why the 2020 elections will determine whether our free market Republic survives, or falls from within to single-party socialist rule.

Yeah, and that heavily armed F16 is telling the PRC where they can go.

BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese official said Wednesday that Beijing will not change its policy of annexing Taiwan through its “one country, two systems” framework, despite the heavy turnout in favor of pro-independence candidates in last weekend’s presidential and legislative elections.

Ma Xiaoguang, spokesman for the Cabinet’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said China would continue to insist on the so-called “’92 Consensus” that acknowledges both the self-governing island and the mainland as part of a single Chinese nation.

“We do not insert ourselves into or critique Taiwan’s elections. This round of Taiwan’s local elections cannot change the status of Taiwan as a part of China,” Ma said.

Ma did not overtly repeat communist-ruled China’s threat to bring Taiwan under its control by force, but said Taiwan’s government needs to “think deeply,” asserting calls for such moves have been growing among the Chinese public.

The Virginia Defense League and Gun Owners of America, the gun rights group that is spearheading the Second Amendment sanctuary movement in the commonwealth, responded to Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring’s statement that called the sanctuary resolution as having “no legal effect.”

The VDL and GOA sent a letter to their supporters and urged them to resist any unconstitutional gun control law the General Assembly passes in the new session next year.

“It is apparent that AG Herring and Governor Ralph Northam believe that Virginia localities have a duty to actively assist the Commonwealth in the enforcement of any law enacted by the General Assembly. These officials appear to believe that such blind obedience is required irrespective of whether a law violates the U.S. Constitution, the Virginia Constitution, or is manifestly destructive of the preexisting rights of the People of Virginia,” the groups wrote. “This radical view is demonstrably false, and ignores the significance of the fact that local officials are required by law to take an oath to support the federal and state constitutions above the laws enacted by the General Assembly.”

The VDL and GOA said Governor Ralph Northam and Herring are wrong in their assessment counties must always implement laws passed since they “have taken exactly the opposite legal position” when it came to sanctuary status for illegal immigrants.

Northam vetoed two bills in March that would have banned localities from becoming sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants and would have required law enforcement agency to notify federal authorities if they had illegal immigrants in their custody.

“The safety of our communities requires that all people, whether they are documented or not, feel comfortable, supported and protected by our public safety agencies,” Northam said at the time.

“Thus, three times in three consecutive years (2017, 2018, and 2019), Governor Northam used his office to support the right of Virginia’s localities to declare themselves sanctuary cities and counties, refusing to help with the enforcement of federal immigration laws, based on mere policy differences with those federal laws,” the gun rights group said.

The VDL and GOA stated there is nothing new with people not obeying illegal and unauthorized government acts, adding, “If necessary, the lower authority may even actively resist the superior authority, since the higher authority is acting illegitimately and unconstitutionally, and without legal authority.”

An overwhelming number of counties in Virginia have declared themselves as Second Amendment sanctuaries, promising to not enforce any gun law deemed as unconstitutional.

“I am in favor of the Second Amendment Sanctuary. I believe we need to send a message to Richmond that our citizens will take a stance. My deputies and I take an oath to uphold the Constitution and that’s what we will do,” said Rappahannock County Sheriff Connie Compton.

Proposals range from Joe Biden’s voluntary gun buybacks to the more radical mandatory confiscation proposed by Cory Booker. (He still misleadingly calls it a “buyback.”) So it’s worth examining how such buybacks played out recently in New Zealand, which passed a ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons and a mandatory gun buyback program after a tragic shooting in April.

The deadline for the mandatory gun buyback program was Friday. The New Zealand program successfully led to the compensated confiscation of 51,000 of the targeted firearms. But as the left-leaning Guardian newspaper reports, this is out of an estimated 170,000 such guns currently in circulation. And there are still a minimum of 1.2 million legally owned firearms in New Zealand on top of that.

This means that many people ignored the demand that they turn in their guns and trust the supposedly benevolent government to protect them from themselves.

And it’s almost certainly safe to say that those who surrendered the 51,000 semiautomatic guns will skew heavily toward the law-abiding, nondangerous end of the spectrum. Thus, getting these guns off the street in this fashion only tends to disarm the good guys, leaving their society at large more at risk, not less. Americans use firearms in self-defense hundreds of thousands of times per year, analysts estimate, usually without firing a shot.

One must avoid drawing direct conclusions based on how policies affect countries with different populations, characteristics, and societal norms. But rough comparisons can be fair, for what they’re worth. And the massive failure of what was a sweeping, bipartisan gun control measure in New Zealand bodes poorly for how more obstreperous Americans would react to the partisan, contentious gun control measures Democrats are contemplating.

Moreover, assuming that American gun owners complied in similar proportions, common sense dictates that those planning to use their guns to commit crimes would be among the last to comply. Meanwhile, millions of people in the United States who pose no threat would become criminals overnight. They could face incarceration or even deadly consequences if police really do go around kicking in doors to seize guns, as failed presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke once called for.

And even in the case of a voluntary buyback, it is far less likely to attract guns that are going to be used in crimes.

All in all, New Zealand’s mandatory buyback program is a massive failure. But don’t expect that to change the minds of most Democratic presidential candidates. They’re concerned with what polls well among the Democratic base — not with what actually works.

I’ve been following the New Zealand firearm “buyback” with some amusement as I ran estimates on the compliance rate based on NZ Police turn-in reports and NZ government guesstimates of the number of affected firearms. (It’s a measly 16.5% as of November 24.)

There are only 17 days left in the amnesty period, so you’d expect that pretty much everyone who had any intention of complying would have registered by now.

Only 38,000. Let’s assume that the 1:1.66 ratio holds true. That would account for 63,080 firearms or 26.3% compliance.

I had been projecting 19.8% assuming no sudden, last-minute rush, and turn-in rates holding steady. But I also figured some folks would get cold feet in the final weeks and decide to turn in their property, especially registered Cat-E “military-style semiautomatic” owners since the government does know who they are (but 60% of even those aren’t complying yet).

I had speculated that the New Zealand government would stop reporting turn-in numbers out of sheer embarrassment. Then they’d dust off early lowball estimates and simply declare the amnesty a success.

Appears the Kiwis are following ‘the spirit’ of their gubbermint’s new gun laws.

Thousands of semi-automatic firearms are being imported to New Zealand so gun owners can re-arm after weapons used in the March 15 Christchurch terror attack were banned.

Gun dealers have responded quickly to sweeping law changes which banned most semi-automatic firearms in April, and have been granted licences to import nearly 7000 semi-automatic rifles which remained permitted.

The number of import permits, issued by police, show firearms owners are keen to replace guns headed to the smelter with .22 calibre semi-automatic “bunny guns”.

The influx comes as Parliament considers further firearm regulations and a December 20 deadline for a gun buyback scheme looms.

Police have so far collected 32,000 firearms from gun owners, of which 21,000 are military-style semi-automatic (MSSA) rifles.

Only 4000 of these were part of the 14,000 guns that already formally had to be registered with police prior to the April law change.

The smaller-calibre .22 rifles, which can legally hold up to 10 bullets and can resemble military-style firearms, escaped the clampdown as they are considered safer than larger calibre weapons and useful for killing farm pests…….

Critics say the firearms still pose a risk to the community. A Stuff investigation, The Homicide Project, showed that of 144 gun homicide incidents since 2004, two thirds involved .22 calibre rifles and shotguns.

Massey University senior lecturer Hera Cook, a member of lobby group Gun Control NZ, said New Zealand should have further restricted access of the .22 guns to farmers and other specific occupations — as Australia did.